


Chancequest: How Ilsa Pucci Turned My Life into an MMORPG

by technosagery



Category: Criminal Minds, Eureka, Human Target (TV 2010), Leverage, Stargate Atlantis, Warehouse 13
Genre: Crossover, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:12:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/technosagery/pseuds/technosagery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ilsa Pucci's been thinking. Chance isn't sure he likes the direction her 'thinking' is taking him, but she leaves him no choice but to play along. Five jobs later - Dr. Rodney McKay, Jo Lupo, Artie Nielsen, Dr. Spencer Reid, and Nate Ford, he gets a tip from Ford's tech kid and he thinks he's getting the hang of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chancequest: How Ilsa Pucci Turned My Life into an MMORPG

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shinealightonme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightonme/gifts).



I’m doing Tai Chi when I hear the door shut and the pointed click-click-click of Ilsa’s Jimmy Choos. Turning my back to the windows is pointless and petty, but she did promise to be an absentee boss and I’m still trying to make that happen. I liked things the way they were.

Right now, I can tell by the pattern of her steps click-click-pause-shift, click-click pause, she’s looking for me. Any second--

“Chance? Mr. Chance, are you here?” Yep, right on schedule, and, boy, those warm British vowels drive me insane. The clicking stops, the floor creaks at the base of the stairs. “Oh, there you are, Chance. Excellent. If you could come downstairs when you have a minute. I’d like a word with you.”

 _When you have a minute._ In other words, now. _I’d like a word with you._ But it’s never just one when it starts like that, and I can tell already, I’m not going to like it. Maybe I should send Winston.

Or Guerrero. He likes saying _no_ to good-looking women; it messes with their heads. He’s good at saying _no_ to anyone, really. The man’s absolutely impervious to guilt-trips.

“Chance,” she calls up again as she spins on her heels. “Let’s make that ‘when you have a minute’, some time within the next five, shall we?”

In my mind’s eye, I put my foot down. Remind her that it’s my name on the door, so to speak, and we do things my way. In reality, I towel off my face and head downstairs still rubbing the back of my neck. Where’s Winston when I need him?

“Thank you so much,” she says, drawing out the ‘so’ around a smug little smile. It’s like her voice and her face can’t decide whether she’s pretending to be grateful or reveling in my surrender. “Please. Sit.”

My ass starts finding a chair before I tell it to; that’s when I know I’m in trouble. “It’s fine, I’ll stand.” For everyone’s safety, I’ve got to preserve my operational ability to make my own choices at least.

She lifts an eyebrow and the corner of her mouth quirks, amused, and I roll my eyes, but I can feel my mouth twitching. Yeah, I’m screwed.

“Well?” I ask, because she’s doing that eye-sparkling thing where I feel like she’s knowing things she’s got no business knowing about me. Anything to distract her.

Not distracted in the least, Ilsa steeples her fingers on her desk. Even the creases at the elbows of her suit are perfect. “Mr. Chance, I’ve been thinking...”

  
Shine a Light on Me initiated.   


**1\. Escort Quest: Rodney McKay**

 _The Escort quest is a combination of slaying monsters to maintain the well-being of a non-player character (NPC) all while exploring an area alongside that NPC. A typical escort quest would involve protecting a character as he or she moves through a monster-infested area._ \- Quest (gaming) - Wikipedia

* * *

“Are you even listening to me? You’re not, are you?”

“Yeah, dude. You geeked out in science lab and now your study buddy’s trying to kill you.” Guerrero looks up from the apple he’s peeling at our new ‘client’, a pudgy neurotic Canadian super-genius who says his Czech pal from a top secret base in the middle of San Francisco Bay wants him dead. Guerrero lifts his eyebrows and I know what’s coming. After twenty minutes of listening to this guy non-stop, I don’t even cut him off. “I don’t blame him.”

“What?” The genius, Dr. Rodney McKay, rounds on me, mouth quivering with indignation. “You can’t let him talk to me like that. I’m paying you to help me.”

“Actually,” I say, tucking my hands in my pockets. “You haven’t paid us yet, and I haven’t decided to--”

“Dr. McKay,” Ilsa’s voice cuts in from behind me. She sounds happy to see him, or at least not unhappy. Obviously, she doesn’t know him that well. “It’s good to see you again. And how is Colonel Sheppard?”

McKay scowls at her and then at me. “I assume he’s fine. I haven’t seen him.”

“Ah.” Ilsa gives me a significant look that she thinks means something and I raise my brows at like I understand. Then she goes and says, “Well, then, that explains why you’ve come to us, and, of course, my associates and I will be delighted to help. Won’t we, gentleman?”

  
You are now bound by duty.   


Delighted’s definitely not the word I’m using after a way too many hours in the car with him, driving north on the 101, and listening to McKay moan about everything from stomachaches to exposure, in between slathering himself with SPF 50 sunscreen and explaining how his invention’s going to make coffee franchises obsolete. By that point I’m siding with Guerrero. It’s not the first time I’ve wanted to kill a client myself, but if he doesn’t let me stop for something to eat soon, I’m going to choke him on his MREs.

I don’t get a chance before there’s a car screaming up out of nowhere to drive us off the side of the road. “Get down!”

He’s looking around wildly and I have to reach out and shove him down. The bullets are flying by then, one raking across the back of my hand. I hiss and the car swerves. I haul it back, spin around (yeah, in the middle of highway traffic, it works to my advantage), and pop off four rounds.

“Did you just-- you can’t just--oh my _god_!” McKay is sputtering as I spin us back the right direction, tires squealing.

“Next time I say get down, you might want to think about _getting. down._ ”

I lean across him and grab a towel out of the glove compartment, then wrap it around my hand with my teeth. I have to hold the wheel with my knee to tuck the end under, but then we’re back on track. “Now. There’s a Burger King off the road up ahead. They’ll be waiting for us there, and I’m getting something to eat.”

“How do you know they’re waiting there? They could be at McDonald’s or Wendy’s or Jack in the Box or Chick-Fil-A or--”

“They’re at Burger King.”

McKay makes a face, like he doesn’t believe me. “I’m a super-genius. Do you know what that means? That means I can calculate the odds of them choosing one fast food place out of--”

I tune him out and keep driving. When he finally gets around to asking again, I tell him, “Because. That’s where I would be.” I don’t bother explaining it to Dr. Math and Science, but when he asks _why_ we’re going to where they are, I remind him, “Because you hired us to get you to Eureka safely, and the best way to do that is to find the hired guns and get rid of them. One’s back there on the road with a bullet in his sternum. There’ll be another one at the Burger King, and another a half an hour on. We’ve entered the kill zone.”

When we pull off at the Burger King, I palm an epipen, just in case. “Just trust me, okay?”

Seven minutes later, McKay’s still complaining and not eating when his throat starts to seize up from the citrus zest I put in his coffee. His eyes bug out while he’s grabbing for air. “Citrus...I’m allergic...”

Guerrero walks out of the john behind us and drops to his knees next to him, shouting, “Someone call an ambulance.” He starts faking CPR, like he’s a doctor on roadtrip, just happened onto a guy choking to death. “We know, dude. Chill.” He waits a little longer than is strictly necessary to jab McKay with another epipen.

That’s my cue. I sprint for the doors and the car like a first-time hitter getting the hell out of Dodge. Sure enough, before I get to the car, another guy slams into me. “What the hell are you doing? That was my kill!”

“Hey, the boss said whoever got to him first--”

“Yeah, I know all about the guy up in the redwoods. But this was--”

Amateur, I think to myself as I slip out of his hold, punch him in the gut, then pop him in zip-ties. He’s bad enough I’m surprised he actually was at Burger King, but I’m not telling McKay that. I find the guy’s phone, flip through the contacts -- “‘Avenue of the Giants’,” (a stretch of the road populated mainly by gorgeous old redwoods, a good place to hide a body) I say out loud for Winston, then call the associated number.

I put the phone up to his head “Give him the signal, or you die.” The muzzle in his forehead’s making a pretty convincing argument, I’m thinking.

Either he’s a better liar than I want to give him credit for, or he agrees, because he says, “It’s done.”

“That’s it? No codeword?” I’m skeptical. No one could be _that_ incompetent.

He shrugs. “Citrus paste.”

I’m not sure whether that’s the codeword or he’s explaining how he did it. Either way, I snap the phone shut, pop the trunk and stuff him in it. “Better hope you were telling the truth, or that’s going to be a painful way to die.” Since smashing the car would be the logical way to start a third attempt on McKay’s life.

McKay’s still holding his throat alternately and gasping like a fish when Guerrero leads him out. In between grateful breaths, he points and shouts, “I could’ve died! You were just going to let me--”

I hold up the epipen, raise my eyebrows and tilt my head toward the car. He shuts up; Guerrero shoves him in. “You got that, Winston?” I ask into my comms.

“ _Yeah. Avenue of the Giants. Ames and I are on it._ ” He gives me an alternate route to Eureka, then Guerrero claps me on the shoulder.

“You sure you don’t want me to just--” He draws his other hand across his throat dramatically. Inside the car, McKay meeps.

“No thanks, man, I got it.” But I quirk a smile at him.

“Whatever you say, dude,” Guerrero says and walks off into the sunset. Blessedly, McKay doesn’t say another damned word til we pull up at the bridge to Eureka.

There’s a woman waiting for us there, way too good-looking for the uniform she’s recently traded in for sleek black that suits her better, arms crossed over her chest where she’s leaning against the railing.

I pull up and roll down the window, smiling. “Jo.” After giving her a casual once over, I add, “You look great.”

She rolls her eyes at me. “Don’t. What’d you bring me?”

Sighing, I slide my glance toward my passenger. “One Canadian scien--super-genius, I got it,” I clarify at an indignant sound from McKay. “One high tech coffee gizmo, and one _bad_ hired hitman.” Jo lifts an eyebrow and I shrug. “Trunk. You have somewhere I can interrogate him?”

Jo gives me a hard look, exhales, then smiles. “As long as you let me help.” Gotta love a woman who loves her interrogations.

  
You are no longer bound by duty.   


Three and a half hours later, McKay’s safely installed at Global Dynamics, there’s a major lawsuit being filed, and Jo and I are sitting in a cafe eating the best _everything_ I’ve ever tasted accompanied by a twenty year scotch. I’m about to ask her how she’s been when she cuts in with, “Seriously, who’d have thought Starbucks would go low budget on hitmen?”

See, it turns out, it wasn’t his lab partner at all, but Starbucks fearing his replication machine would crash the global coffee economy. I shrug at her and wink. “Everyone. They’re cheap bastards.” It’s why their coffee sucks.

Jo cracks a grin, finally. Damn, she looks really good. “So, Josephina,” I draw out her full name. “How’ve you been?”

 **2\. Delivery Quest: Jo Lupo**

 _Another type of quest is the delivery quest, also known as a FedEx quest or fetch-carry quest. This involves the character being sent to deliver an item from one location to another._ \- Quest (gaming) - Wikipedia

I wake to sun on my face, tangled sheets, the smell of coffee and an empty bed. It figures. Jo’s never been comfortable enough with casual for mornings after. There’s a pair of sweats on the bed that I figure are for me, and I’m just reaching across to pull them on when Jo appears in the doorway to her bedroom with a mug of coffee in one hand and the other behind her back.

I’m more interested in the coffee. “You’re an angel. Has anyone ever told you--”

A courier pack smacks me in the chest. I frown at her and at the pack, now sitting awkwardly perched over my groin. “What’s that?”

She just smiles and a panel slides on the wall exposing a plasma screen. On it, Ilsa’s sitting behind her desk, hands folded. “ _Good morning, Mr. Chance. I trust you slept well?_ ”

My eyes are popped wider than a cartoon character’s while I scramble for clothes. “Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Pucci,” I say, because politeness can’t hurt in this situation, then glare accusingly at Jo.

Jo laughs, sips the coffee, then mouths, “ _Video’s one way until you initiate it,_ ” while Ilsa’s saying something about me feeling fully recovered and up to another job.

Oh, Jo is going to pay for that. But first, I have to see about whatever it is Ilsa wants. And get dressed. “Nothing more serious than a bullet-graze over the back of my hand. What’s the job?”

“ _By now, someone in Eureka should have delivered to you a courier pack. Do you have it?_ ”

“Yes.” I pull on the sweats and grab a t-shirt from my bag.

“ _Good. Don’t open it. Josephina Lupo has engaged our firm to transport that package from Eureka to a storage facility in the Badlands of South Dakota. She’ll explain everything you need to know._ ”

Just as I initiate video to discuss it with her, Ilsa gives me a tight smile -- “ _Good luck, Mr. Chance,_ ” and signs out.

  
You are now bound by duty.   


What I need to know turns out to be a whole lot of nothing. Don’t open the pack. Don’t open the box that’s in the pack. Try not to handle the pack. And don’t stop anywhere along the way.

The sun’s out, the roof’s open, the engine’s purring. I almost feel bad taking Global Dynamics’s money for this one. Maybe that’s why I wait until I cross the Oregon border to open the courier pack.

There’s some funky purplish foil in there, but otherwise, it’s just a courier pack. I glance back at the road, to make sure it’s still clear up ahead, and see I’ve come up behind a group of trucks.

Which I hate. Visibility drops to nothing when the vehicles ahead of you are too tall. So I ignore the purple pack and the box on the passenger seat while I do some fancy driving - drop back, wait for a space to develop between, gun in through the space and--

And I _should_ be zipping out between the truck on my right and the one in front of me, but I’m not. I’m boxed in and they’re slowing down.

“Crap. Winston...”

I should’ve known it wouldn’t be a cakewalk if Jo wanted me for it. What was I thinking?

Trying to get a look at what I’m dealing with, I crane my head around. A guy in a black-hooded robe pulls up next to me on a motorcycle.

 _Crap._

We’re down to twenty miles an hour and he’s motioning for me to open the window. I shrug like I don’t understand and start running through escape plans.

“ _If you can get out between the motorcycle and the lead truck, you’ve got a clear stretch--_ ” Winston’s voice pipes up over the comms.

“Father of all good timing. Thank Guerrero for me, pal.” Since he probably hacked a government spy satellite for the view.

Black Hood’s getting impatient, but he doesn’t seem to have a gun. That’s a point in my favor. At this range, it’s hard to evade a gunshot to the face. Not impossible, mind you, but not easy either.

I slow down to a crawl and put down the window, shooting my best big and dumb look through it.

He’s not buying it. Maybe it’s because I’m not that big? “Give me the box, Mr. Chance,” he says, light but noticeable Italian accent. “And you will not have to get hurt.

 _Seriously, Jo? No warning?_ I reach for the box and he leans in. These guys are good. I’m only going to get one shot at it. “Yeah, okay. You’ve got me--” Instead of handing it to him, I punch him in the throat with it. “Beat,” I finish as he falls off the bike, grabbing for his crushed trachea.

If he’s lucky, one of the guys in the trucks can perform an emergency tracheotomy with a ballpoint pen. I can, but I’m not sticking around to find out or to perform first aid. Instead, I gun it, zipping around the bike to the median and passed the lead truck. Then I’m pedal to the metal for the next forty miles.

About fifty miles from where I got ambushed, I start getting twitchy. Almost, I hate to say it, _weepy_. I’d suspect some kind of poison, but physically, I feel fine. It’s just that I suddenly feel the weight of the job pressing down on me, all the dead bodies piling up...

I pull off in a little town, middle of nowhere, open the box in the parking lot of a Catholic church, and frown at a small sliver of wood on a bed of royal purple satin. When I reach out to run my finger over it, to see what’s so special about it, I’m hit hard with the feeling I’m not worthy.

Before I even realize what I’m doing, I’m out of the car, carrying the closed box into the church, and opening the door to the confessional.

“How can I help you, my son?” comes the voice from the other side of the screen, and even though I’m fighting it, I hear myself answering, “Forgive me, father, for I have sinned. It’s been a really long time--” Forever. “Since my last confession.”

“Very well. Tell me your sins.”

Even to me, that doesn’t sound right, but I’m too busy naming names and places and the holes in people to act on it.

The door to my side of the confessional opens. There are tears streaming down my cheeks, and a guy in a black-hooded robe reaches out with blue gloved hands to take the box from me. I’m too overcome with my wretchedness to stop him.

“Is it--?” a second guy outside the confessional asks.

“Si, the lost sliver,” he answers and sticks whole kit and caboodle in another purple foil thingy. I really need to figure out what’s up with that.

Funny thing is, as soon as he does, I start feeling pretty ridiculous. “Sorry about this, father, but I don’t have time to take it outside,” I say, and hope these guys aren’t as good as everyone says they are.

They are.

It’s a good thing I’m better.

Forty-three seconds pass between the initial contact and me holding the purple-foil packet and my three cracked ribs. The two Black Hoods are lying on the ground. One’s got two broken legs. The other one might be dead. I’m not sure.

“Winston?” I call through my comms as I sprint out the front door, blinking at the broad daylight.

“ _You okay, Chance?_ ” he sounds worried. That’s not a good sign.

“Fine. Broken ribs. Have Mrs. Pucci make a donation to the Holy Cross Church on Elm Street. And have Guerrero give me the fastest route to this storage facility. A helicopter would be great.” I hop in the car, put the box under the seat, and shift into reverse.

“ _No can do on the helicopter, dude,_ ” Guerrero chimes in.

“What about that guy in--”

“ _I mean it, Chance. No can do._ ”

I sigh as the tires squeal and I pull back onto the highway. “Fine, get me Jo on the line. I need answers. _Now._ ” Or someone’s going to die, and it probably isn’t going to be Jo.

“ _You got it, dude._ ”

The church and the Black Hoods are well into my rearview before I hear the click of someone coming on the line. I don’t even give her a chance before I bitch, “Seriously. You send me out as a courier and forget to mention that there’s a damned good chance I’m going to end up dead before I get there?”

“ _Oh, come on, Chance. Don’t be melodramatic. What’s a few Black Hoods for a guy like you?_

“What’s a few...” I snarl, yank the car out from behind another truck and zip on between two cars. “The Vatican. You put me up against the Vatican’s super secret so-secret they don’t even exist black ops force without telling me, and I’m melodramatic?”

“ _Consider revenge served,_ ” she says and clicks off, leaving me a lot of miles between here and the turn-off into nowhere to wonder how long she’s been nursing a grudge about the last time. It wasn’t my fault I had to leave in a rush. Sure, I could’ve told her, but I didn’t think she’d appreciate knowing she’d been harboring a felon wanted in five countries in her bed.

Seems like she’s figured it out.

It’s daylight again by the time I get to the place the GPS tells me to turn. There’s literally nothing there. “Guerrero, you’re sure--”

“ _You’re asking me if I’m sure, dude? What do you think this is--_ ”

“Never mind. Forget I asked. Where do I--” Before I can get the words out, there’s a warehouse appearing up ahead, and a flying wedge of Black Hoods - _seven_ of them on my back trail.

I slam on the brakes, grab the box, ditch the car and make a run for it. I get five steps before a football comes zooming out of nowhere and knocks two of the seven off their bikes and into each other. Nice.

Three jump off and converge on me. I chuck the box toward the door of the warehouse that’s just opening and engage.

“Chance, _duck_ ,” I hear as I’m sweeping the feet out from under one guy and slamming the other in the solar plexus. The third hits the broken ribs, and I don’t so much duck as fall.

A hot redhead and a burly ex-Fed-type point weapons at the Black Hoods. There’s a sizzle and a pop and the two still on bikes are on the ground and twitching.

Some kind of taser, I have time to think before I push up and into the third guy. He hits the ground, and the two with the guns hold off the guys who are climbing to their feet.

“Sweet. A sliver of the True Cross!” A girl can’t be more than 19 bounces over to me and the box. She’s even more excited about whatever her job is than Ames. “Nice moves, man. You’re going to have show me how to do that in D.C,” she says, beaming, then bounds up again to hand off the package at the door.

  
You are no longer bound by duty.   


“Oh good, you’re here. You’re just in time. Come on in,” says this short guy with wireframe glasses who takes the package from her. “You three, go go shoo.”

I’m dusting myself off and he’s gesturing broadly for me to follow. I look at the other three and the guy says, “Just go with it. You’ll end up doing it anyway, so you might as well not fight it.”

Since I’m not sure I could fight it at the moment, I follow him inside. Inside is a long white tube, the kind you see on tv in late night movies about aliens. At the end of it, he throws open a door and lets me in.

“Welcome. Welcome to Warehouse 13.”

 

 **3\. Gather Quest: Artie Nielsen**

 _Gather quests, also known as collection quests, require a character to collect a number of items. These can either be gathered from a location or environment, or require the character to kill creatures in order to collect the required items. The quest may also require the character to collect a number of different items, for example to assemble a device._ \- Quest (gaming) - Wikipedia

The guy, who introduces himself as Artie Nielsen, tells me a little about Warehouse 13, mostly that it’s a secret storage facility (right, that much I figured out), for artifacts like the one I just brought in (obviously), while I’m being taped up and checked out by a doctor who looks shockingly like the original Bionic Woman.  
“Thanks, doc,” I venture, smiling at her, and the guy, Artie clears his throat. I glance back at him and then at her, and--ah, got it. Why can’t women be as clear about these things as men?

“Anyway, as I was saying, we’re short an agent since one of ours--” Artie’s lips press together tightly and he goes from looking like someone’s crazy uncle to looking like someone’s really scary crazy uncle before he shakes it off. “Mrs. Pucci has kindly agreed to lend you to me.”

Oh she has, has she? “For _what_?” I demand and wave off the lady doc to put my shirt back on.

“Oh, it’s nothing really. Just a silly little thing.” He bustles me out into a cluttered office. “Would you like some cookies?”

“What I’d really like is a straight answer.”

He huffs and starts to talk. “You see, there’s a legend...”

  
You are now bound by duty.   


Bright and early the next morning, I’m in a sleepy little town near Cleveland called Chagrin Falls. Doing what? Looking for daisy petals. Not just any daisy petals, but five cloisonne daisy petals to go with a stem Artie gave me.

I’m supposed to collect them all, _without_ touching them with my bare hands, put them in one of those purple foil thingies and then he’ll give me instructions from there. It turns out, the purple foil thingies neutralize the effects of the artifacts. And the artifacts? Are imbued with special abilities by the emotions put into their creation.

If you ask me, it all sounds like a bunch of hooey, but, “Mrs. Pucci has agreed to lend you to me,” I sing-song to myself as I pull up in front of the local pizza joint. There are reports of not one but four bended knee proposals to the hostess in the last four hours.

Since it’s a family owned place, I dust myself off and straighten my collar on the way in. It’s important to look presentable when you want something from someone.

At the hostess desk, a very plain girl in too-tight jeans and a too-tight t-shirt for an Aerosmith concert she isn’t old enough to have attended is staring down at a clean-cut kid in a black and orange letter jacket.

“Tammy, I know this is sudden, but I’ve been thinking about what you said the other night. You know, out behind Old Man Sully’s place, and you’re right. We’re destined to be together. I don’t care if I have to go to State instead of U of M. I want to marry you. Will you have me?”

“ _It’s terribly romantic, isn’t it?_ ” Ilsa chimes in over my earpiece.

“No, it’s not terribly romantic, Mrs. Pucci. That kid’s going to throw his entire life away on a girl he doesn’t even know.” I look at her hands again. She’s wearing four different engagement rings. “Or he would be, if she hadn’t said ‘yes’ to four other guys before him.”

Before she can say yes again, I make my way over to the desk. “Excuse me, I need to see the manager. Immediately.”

Tammy scowls at me. “Can’t you see I’m busy here?”

I raise my voice and do my best impression of a pompous asshole. It’s not that hard. “I was under the impression this was a restaurant, not a soap opera. Are you or are you not employed in this place? Because if you want to stay that way--”

The guy on the ground gives me a black look, but Tammy’s already got her hand in her pocket. When she pulls it out, she reaches for my arm.

On the off-chance she’s about to do what I think she’s about to do, I grab her wrist. “Show it to me.”

Yep, she was about to do what I thought she was about to do. In her palm, there’s a white cloisonne daisy petal on a silver chain. Tammy doesn’t look even a little bit guilty. In fact, if she weighed more than 120 pounds soaking wet, I might be worrying about her putting up a fight for it.

I open one of the purple bags with my teeth and hold it out to her. “Drop it in here.”

She doesn’t.

I look into her eyes and will her to trust me. Sometimes it works. It does with Ames. “Don’t make me do this the hard way, honey. I’m sure you’re a nice girl and all, but that thing’s messing with your mind. Just drop it in here.”

She does.

“That’s a girl.” I let her go and seal the bag.

Tammy blinks dazedly at the diamonds on her hand. “What--where?”

The guy on the ground is scrambling to his feet doing his best imitation of a goldfish. “Tammy?” He grabs back the ring he gave her. “What are you...ew. I can’t... _ew_. Don’t say anything about this to anyone! Jodie’s going to kill me.”

I’m tempted to give her the daisy petal back for a minute. Instead, I snark at Ilsa, “Just like a Harlequin.”

“ _Oh, save it, Mr. Chance,_ ” she says and snaps off her headset. I smile a little to myself and pocket the bag.

“Listen, Tammy.” I put my hand soothingly on her shoulder. “You’re probably going to feel a little weird for a few days. If anyone asks you what happened, or asks for a ring back, just tell them you don’t remember anything, okay?”

“Who are you?” she asks.

“Christopher Chance,” I tell her then head back to the car. One down, four to go.

The next two come easy. The girl who has the second one’s been trying to convince her boyfriend of six years to marry her since the daisy petal showed up in her jewelry box. She keeps asking and he keeps saying no. Neither of them has any idea why. I take the petal from her, and within seconds, they’re kissing and he’s asking her to marry him.

Over the comms, Ames pipes in, “ _Too bad Mrs. Pucci didn’t get to listen in on that one, huh?_ ”

“Aren’t you supposed to be chained up and practicing your escape artistry?” I ask and head off to collect the third petal.

I pull up outside a farmhouse and there’s a guy _running_ from the front door - and, I’m not even kidding, count them seven, really beautiful blond girls are following after. He’s so busy running, he doesn’t even see me. Just tosses the daisy petal into a drainage ditch on his way by. I get out, scoop it up, don’t talk to anyone, no one’s the worse for the wear.

Four’s even more simple. No humans involved. Meadowbrook Farms prize stallion can’t get it up for the lady horses and the breeders are talking. I swoop in, scoop the daisy petal off his headstall, and he’s back to mounting the mares in no time.

But five, five’s a real bitch. I get to the high school football field where I hear someone wrapped a daisy necklace around the goal post. A luck offering for the game against their rivals, the Lions, on the weekend.

A girl, she might not be older than the cute, bouncy redhead in the Badlands (Claudia, Artie said her name was), but the moves on the boy she’s got pushed up against the uprights, those are straight out of Ames’s playbook. The boy’s saying ‘yes’, but even from here I can see his eyes pleading, ‘please, no’.

I mosey on over, hands in pockets, pretending to be your average nosy adult. “What’re you kids doing out here on a school night?” I ask, and the boy looks like he’s going to cry.

“You’re not my dad, his dad, or the Sheriff, so fuck off,” the girl snarls.

I keep walking until I’m right up beside the boy.

“I don’t know why I keep saying ‘yes’.” He’s talking to me, looking at me, begging me to save him.

Oh hell. He’s gay.

“I’m gay.”

I reach up and rub my hand over my eyes. “You know he’s gay right?” I ask the girl.

She leans in and shows us her cleavage. “It’s okay, I don’t mind a little boy-on-boy action,” she purrs.

“Listen. Here’s what’s going to happen,” I say to the kid. “What’s your name?”

“Toby,” he says.

“All right, Toby, listen up. On the count of three, I’m going to lean against this goalpost, and you’re going to step away.” The girl’s making annoyed faces, but she’s listening, so she’s probably trying to fight this too. “This is the important part, though. Okay?”

He nods, and so does she, surprisingly.

“Okay, after she--what’s your name, honey?” This isn’t a good scene, but Ames is listening still. If it goes bad, she can get Guerrero to call in the cops. I’ll worry about statutory rape charges if it happens.

She’s still looking at Toby, rubbing his hip with her fingers. “Cynthia. Cyndi, with a ‘y’ and an ‘i’.”

“After you do that, Toby, Cyndi’s going to start hitting on me. When she does, you get that necklace, you see it?” He nods. “You take it off the goal post, and you put it in the purple foil bag I’m going to be holding. “Okay?”

His teeth are chattering, not from cold, but from shock. He nods. “Okay.”

“Ready? On a count of three.” I pull out the bag and open it, gaze trained on Cyndi. “One.” I step closer. “Two.” Still closer. “Three.” My bare hand connects with the goalpost, and if I don’t kiss Cyndi any second, my life is going to be meaningless. “You love me, Cyndi, don’t you?”

Toby grabs the necklace. “I love you,” he says, to me I think. Cyndi grabs the bag and holds it out. Toby drops it in.

It sizzles, and all three of us slump to the ground.

“...what just happened?” Cyndi asks. “Toby, what just happened?”

They both look at me. “Guys, I don’t know. But I think we could all use some ice cream.” It’s completely inane, but Toby’s hugging Cyndi and both of them are hugging me. And an hour later, they’re telling me and Ames that they’ve been best friends since kindergarten and their moms are on the PTA together and they’re going to live together at Tulane, where Cyndi with a ‘y’ and an ‘i’ is actually going to medical school.

“ _Now that beats romance, any day,_ ” Mrs. Pucci concludes.

  


You are no longer bound by duty.

  


From the bed and breakfast by the Falls, I contact Artie on the weird device he lent me and fill him in on the mission. Ames is poking around in the mini-bar making noise and I wave for her to keep it down.

Artie’s peering at me through the little screen. “ _So you have them all? All five?_ ”

“Yeah, I’ve got them all,” I tell him, and decide maybe I could use a drink when Ames is holding up some Grey Goose and making a thumbs up gesture with a big ridiculous smile. I mouth “O.J.” before kicking off my shoes and stretching back on one of the two beds.

“ _What was that? I couldn’t hear you._ ”

“Nothing.” But I give Ames a big thumbs up when she shows me how much O.J. she poured.

“ _Okay, so you didn’t touch any of them._ ”

“Right,” I lie. They’re all in purple bags now.

“ _Great. Claudia will--_ ”

The cute little redhead pushes in to the space of the screen and blows me a kiss. “ _Great! I’ll see you in D.C._ ”

Ames is still grinning at me too.  
Oh hell. She loves me, she loves me not...

I rifle through the bags for the one from Meadowbrook farm and touch it. It better not have any permanent effects.

 

 **4\. Syntax Quest: Spencer Reid**  
 _A phenomenon unique to text-based games, syntax depend on guessing the correct syntax to use to carry out a (typically simple) operation._ \- Quest (gaming) - Wikipedia

When we touch down in D.C. the next day, we being Ames, Winston and I, I’m still arguing that it would’ve been smarter to take the daisy back to the Badlands. Winston bobs his head in agreement. Ames wants to know what the big deal is, D.C.’s awesome, maybe she can fleece--

“Stop wagging your tongue and get your carry-on. U.S. Congressmen are off-limits, you understand?” Winston scolds.

Ames makes the pinched-face hurt puppy look at me and I shrug. “Don’t look at me. I just work here, apparently.”

Winston sighs. “Are you going to start in on that _again_ , Chance?”

“What, the fact that Mrs. Pucci hasn’t so much as asked if I’m willing to take these last three jobs?” I heft my bag over my shoulder. “Yeah, I’m going to start on that. And keep going on that until you explain to the woman that I need to meet the clients before I take them on.”

All three of us blink when we step out of the plane. “Uh, guys?” This isn’t Dulles. “Where are we?”

Ilsa chimes in over the earpieces to answer, “You’re to take the daisy parts to a Dr. Spencer Reid at the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI. The gentleman joining you will escort you.” After a pause, she adds, “Just you, Mr. Chance. Winston and Ames have another engagement.”

  
You are now bound by duty   


“Oh good, you’re here,” says a tallish, skinny, floppy haired kid who alternately looks like a clothing model or a street brat, depending on whether he’s looking at you or at something else. He has an odd accent and his voice sounds like he might still be going through puberty.

I decide he’s got to be Reid’s assistant. “I’m Christopher Chance. I’m looking for--”

“Dr. Spencer Reid,” he says and holds out his hand.

Both my eyebrows lift, pinching together. “You’re Reid,” I say flatly. We’re inside the FBI BAU. He can’t be conning me, can he? “Somehow I expected--”

“Someone a little older and more distinguished, I know. I get that all the time.” I can’t tell whether he’s ticked off or just amused. “Garcia, can you cross-reference the known victims with unsolved cases in the D.C. Area?”

From behind me, a woman’s voice answers, “Already on it, sweet pea. Who’s the new guy?”

I turn, and she’s not what I would’ve expected. Yes, she’s got the glasses to go with that telephone operator voice, but she’s a big girl with pretty eyes and big bright smile to go with it. I feel better just looking at her.

“Christopher Chance,” Reid answers, before I get a...well, chance. “He’s a consultant on the case Artie Nielsen has me working on. Make sure he has anything he needs, okay?”

“You bet, my scintillating sweet.” She winks at me when she walks out and for the first time in days, I find myself grinning.

“Garcia’s amazing.” Reid doesn’t even look at me. He’s too busy rifling through the purple bags I just set down on the table. “She can do things with a computer that make magic seem tame. Not that I believe in magic or anything.”

Maybe if Guerrero plays nice, I’ll introduce them. Nah.

“If you don’t believe in magic, what’s with all this?” I shove at one of the discarded bags with a fingertip.

“While I don’t believe in magic, I do believe that items can have altered energy states as well as magnetic effects and imperceptible sonic vibrations that can affect behavior.” Reid dumps out all five bags and pushes the daisy petals around. “Do you have the stem?”

I get the feeling he’s not talking with me, just around me. It’d be annoying if I wasn’t used to it with Guerrero when he’s working on a machine. “Yeah, here.” I pull out the first bag, the one Artie gave me and nudge it to him.

“Would you mind putting on some gloves?” he asks, sort of peevish while he works the daisy like a puzzle, but the pieces aren’t hooking together. “This guy’s out there and he’s going to kill again. We can’t afford the distraction of one or both of us touching one of the petals and ending up in a perpetual feedback yes-no loop until someone finds us.”

Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talk about the possibility of accidentally having sex with a stranger with that little concern. I don’t answer, but pull on the gloves.

“Thank you.” He picks up the pieces one by one and puts them together. Not one time, but four separate times. Nothing happens. Reid rakes his hands into his hair. “It’s staring me right in the face, but I can’t see it.”

“Out of curiosity, what are you looking for?” I ask. Hey, I’m there. I might as well.

“The five petals and the stem all hook together around this center point.” He shows me a little gold disk, like the pollen cushion on a real daisy. “If it’s put together right, we think it will lead us to the killer.”

“Color me stupid, but I can’t figure out what a magical daisy has to do with a serial killer.”

Reid shoots me a wry look. “Not everyone has, or needs to have an IQ in the upper 90s, Mr. Chance. Sometimes it just gets in the way.” He rakes a hand through his hair. “Like now. I know I’m overthinking this.”

I lean on my hands over the worktable and look at the pieces. “All right. So we need to get the daisy put back together, so that it will do what?”

“If you put it back together right, legend has it, it will glow, and draw the last person who touched it whole back to itself, to create a state of perfect harmony between itself and the wearer.” He looks at me expectantly, but I can tell he doesn’t think I’m following.

“And you think the killer had the daisy before it ended up in Chagrin Falls.”

“Exactly, Mr. Chance.” He smiles a watery smile. “The police in Falls Church, Virginia are calling him the Loves Me Not Killer, but that’s not accurate. He’s actually the Loves Me, Loves Me Not killer. The women who lie convincingly about loving him become part of a delusion and are coerced to have sex, but they’re set free after. The women who don’t are murdered.”

I’ve seen a murder board once or twice. This one’s the grisliest I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying something for an ex-contract killer. As I look away, my gaze snags on a watch on one of the women’s wrists, and I think of Baptiste who is functionally ambidextrous, but most people favor one hand.

“Is your killer right-handed or left-handed?”

Reid looks up, head tilting and gaze clearing. “Left-handed, why--oh, I think I see where you’re going with this.”

I nod and rearrange the pieces, keeping them aligned with the bags so we still know which is which.

“A lefty would pull the petals counter-clockwise...” Reid says, and before I can pick up the first petal, he’s running through the sequences of ‘loves me, loves me not’.

Between the two of us, it takes all of seven minutes to find the combination that locks all of the pieces in place. “So how do we know if it’s working?”

“I don’t know. It should be doing something. There should be an area effect of some kind. You don’t feel anything?” he asks, looking worried. “I guess we could call Artie.”  
I pull off my gloves. “Stay with me a second.” I frown at the daisy and then glance it him. “Take it apart again, but leave the pieces in order.”

“I don’t see how that’s going to--”

“It’s not going to hurt, kid. Just do it.”

He shrugs and pulls the daisy apart. As soon as all seven pieces are laid in place, I jerk my head to the door. “You’re going to want to step outside.”

“I can’t do that, Mr. Chance, I’m--”

“Listen, kid. Dr. Reid. I get it. You’re responsible for this and me, but you’ve gotta trust me here. I’ve seen this thing work.” His eyebrows are climbing and I can almost see him digging his feet in. “Unless you want your boss to have Triple X footage of the two of us going at it on the conference table, you’re going to want to step outside.”

His mouth and his brows all twitch at once and I can’t tell whether he’s trying not to laugh or to say he wouldn’t mind. Either way, I give him a three count, and he beats it toward the door. Someone’s trained him decently.

One by one, I put the pieces back together. “He loves me, he loves me not. He loves me, he loves me not.” I put the last petal back on the center. “He loves me.” Then there’s just the stem, and I’m already feeling the whiplash pull of the ‘energies’, but I hook it on and the daisy hums and glows.

Reid steps back into the room and doesn’t jump me. He grins. “You did it, Mr. Chance.”

  
You are no longer bound by duty.   


Reid’s laughing and joking with SSA Morgan when they come back from the hunt. Morgan’s calling him ‘kid’ and patting him on the back. It’s nice to see, actually, since working with him, I got the feeling Reid was a McKay in the making. Having someone like Morgan around, and SSA Prentiss, who keeps giving me the eyes of ‘loves me not, but wouldn’t mind seeing me naked’, will beat the arrogance down to a manageable level.

I’ve been cooling my heels with Garcia, whose first name turns out to be Penelope, and who I’d scoop up in a heartbeat, except I don’t think Ilsa could pay her enough to make her leave this team. And she wouldn’t, either. There’s one thing Ilsa values above everything, and that’s loyalty.

It doesn’t stop me from saying, “If you ever need a job, Garcia--”

“She has a job. Don’tcha, baby girl?” Morgan says as he wraps an arm around her shoulders.  
The way she looks at him, it’s almost like him Toby looking at me under the influence of the daisy. “You know it, gorgeous. Where would you be without me?”

“You know where I’d be, sweetheart.”

There’s a moment there, I almost feel like I shouldn’t be watching. Ilsa must be, or listening at least, because she sighs into my earpiece. “That _, Mr. Chance, is true love._ ”

I don’t answer, because just then, Claudia comes bounding through the halls of the BAU, skipping. Literally, and lifting her visitor’s pass every fourth skip to look at it. “You!” she calls in my direction.

Crap.

She loves me, she loves me not. She loves me-- “Listen, Claudia, you’re terrific and all, but--”

“Not you, silly.” She pats my shoulder and shakes her head as she goes by to launch herself at Dr. Reid. “Hey!”

“Claudia, hi. I don’t think this is--”

“Shut up and kiss me, you fool.” She laughs, and he kisses her.

I roll my eyes and retreat, muttering about professionalism and kids and get off my damned lawn, and “in my day....”

“ _Oh, come now, Chance. You must admit you’re enjoying yourself. It’s nice to help the truly good guys once in awhile, isn’t it?_ ”

Inexplicably, I find myself smiling. She’s right, but I’m not going to give her the satisfaction. “Good night, Ilsa.”

 

 **5\. Kill Quest: Nathan Ford**

 _A kill quest sends the character out to kill either a specific number of named creatures, or a specific non-player character or NPC. These types of quests often require the character to bring back proof of their work, such as animal fangs for a creature kill quest, or the head of an NPC._ \- Quest (gaming) - Wikipedia

When I get to my hotel room, Winston, Ames and Guerrero are all waiting for me. I was looking forward to a shower, some scotch, a good night’s sleep. I sigh and lean in the doorway. “What’s this about?”

“Now, Chance,” Winston starts, and I know I’m not going to like this one bit. “I know what you’re going to say.”

Yep. Definitely not going to like it. I hold up my hand. “Mrs. Pucci. Ilsa?”

“ _Yes, Chance?_?” she says slowly, like I’m interrupting something other than her listening in on us.

“Just checking. Go ahead, Winston.”

He scowls and motions to Guerrero who waves him off. “Don’t look at me, dude.”

Ames rolls her eyes. “Chickens.” She hops down off the dresser where she’s sitting, pours a glass of our carry-around scotch and hands it to me. “There’s a client waiting in the next room.”

Not so much waiting as knocking on the adjoining door. Ames opens it and a guy in a fedora steps in. “I’m Nathan Ford,” he says. “And I need you to kill someone.”

I look at Winston. “I assume you told him I’m out of the business.”

Winston sighs and twists his hands around his glass. “Just hear the man out, Chance.”

“ _Mr. Chance,_ ” Ilsa cuts in. “This client, actually, the client and a member of his team are personal friends of mine. It would mean a great deal to me if you’d at least listen to him.”

“Fine. _Fine._ ” I cross my arms over my chest and give him the hairy eyeball. It’s not that I’m morally opposed to killing people who need killing. I’m just not a contract killer anymore. “Start with _why_ I’m going to do this, and then we’ll get to the who and the how.”

Nathan Ford smiles, and it’s the coldest thing I’ve ever seen. As cold as Guerrero with a glue gun. “Mr. Chance, how would you like to help me put away Damian Moreau.”

I swing my arms down off my chest and offer him a hand. The others don’t know why, but obviously Ford’s done his homework. “Well played. I’m in.”

  


You are now bound by duty.

  


“What are you doing here?” the mark demands in a rough, hickory smoked drawl but like knows like and he’s no one’s Bubba.

“Damian Moreau sent me,” I say and crack my knuckles to draw the attention of my handler, following twenty feet behind.

He lifts an eyebrow and cracks his, elbows splayed out and already taking up a stance.

“He asked me to tell you, he doesn’t take kindly to traitors.” I circle right.  
“He’s no country, and I’m not a traitor.” He paces me.

“I’ll be sure to tell him you object.” I swing.

And miss. Damn it, this guy’s fast. Ford and Moreau both send he would be, but this is going to be harder than I thought.

We go maybe four rounds before I finally get enough of jump on him to whisper, “Ford sent me. He says black rook, white knight.”

Spencer nods once, almost imperceptibly.

“Sorry.”

He rolls his eyes for the apology, but then his eyes are bugging out because I’m choking the life out of him. He makes a good show of not letting me, but in the end, he falls.

My handler comes over to check his non-existent pulse while I count the seconds. We don’t have many. “Good,” he says. “Clean this up.” Then he walks off.

Before I can get Spencer into the van beside the road, a tiny little blond all in black jumps on my back and starts beating me around the head and neck. She stabs me in the upper chest. I think with a fork. “You killed Eliot.”

  
You are no longer bound by duty.   


The next afternoon, I’m sitting in a bar with Eliot Spencer. We’re drinking beer and watching his funeral on a little flatscreen monitor, one of the ones for watching DVDs on the airplane.

“Gotta hand it to you, man, you’re good,” he says and touches his beer to mine.

“We were about to have a real problem there if I couldn’t get close enough to drop the line.” On the screen, Ames is talking to the blond. I rub my chest while we listen to them comparing notes about laser security grids.

“Nate’s an asshole. He shoulda told me.” Eliot glances at where I’m rubbing then at Parker. “Sorry about that, man. There’s something wrong with that girl.”

“ _Loyalty is what’s wrong with that girl, Mr. Spencer,_ ” Ilsa chimes in. In the memorial park, she’s talking to a damned good looking woman who'd been introduced to me as Sophie Deveraux.

“Yeah, yeah,” Eliot growls at Ilsa and flips his hair back.

I’m about to answer him when Ilsa kisses Sophie more than chastely on the mouth, and Sophie kisses back. We glance at each other. "Hot," we both say at once. Ford clears his throat through the comm systems. I lift an eyebrow. Eliot shrugs.

While the women catch up about 'that time in London', Ford addresses us both, “ _Nicely done, gentleman. Eliot, I commend you on an exceptional death scene. And not spoiling your own funeral by showing up. Unlike Sophie._ ”

“I’ma give you ‘death scene’, Nate. I _died_ , you sonuva--”

“ _Yes, well. Look at it this way. Now when you go after Moreau next week, we’ll have the element of surprise._ ”

Eliot sighs, and I signal for some whiskey for both of us. I’d order Scotch, but he doesn’t seem like the type.

We sit there for awhile, try to figure out what went on between Ilsa and Sophie, and finally I say to him, “You ever feel like you do the same five jobs, over and over and over again?”

“All the damned time,” he growls.

“ _Hell, yeah you do. You see you two are like adventuring heros on these quests, you know, and there’s pretty much only five types--_ ”

“What?” I’m saying, just as Eliot’s snarling, “Geek spiral, Hardison.”

“ _All right, all right. You don’t got to...sheesh, try to help a man out and--”_

Eliot growls again and I’m thinking about signing on for the end of their Moreau mission. We could work together.

 _“It’s like this. Y’all are like the PC characters, that’s the played characters, you know, in an MMORPG....”_

* * *

I catch the red-eye back from D.C., grab a shower, and ‘return to the Adventurer’s Guild’, ie the Marshall Pucci Foundation. Ilsa’s already in the outer office to greet me when I step off the stairs (I tend to avoid elevators, what with how often our office is getting invaded these days).

“Chance.” She’s wearing something purple and expensive that’s doing great things for her figure. And she’s smiling. “You’re here early.”

“Yeah,” I tell her, walking up until I’m in her personal space. Gotta give her credit though. The woman _never_ backs down. “I hear there’s some kind of reward at the end of a quest. I’m here to claim it.” I smirk.

Her hair slides against the silk when she tilts her head. I know that look. It’s ‘bemused.’ “You’re not owed your paycheck until next week, if that’s what you mean.”

“No,” I say, spelling it out slowly as I brush passed her to the coffeemaker. “I mean a reward. Gil, gold, mushroom caps, cotton fluff, some rare flower. Whatever it is the adventurer gets for successful completion of the quest.”

“I’m afraid I don’t take your meaning, Chance. You’ll have to explain.” There’s a hint of laughter in her voice now, so either she knows what I’m talking about or she thinks I’m ‘daft.’

“On the last job, the tech kid, Hardison something. He said this was whole thing was like some kind of roleplaying game, MMA...MMO...and since I’d completed it successfully, if I returned to the Adventurer’s Guild, there’d be something waiting for me.” It’s all slow and patient, like I’m talking to a kid, while I’m measuring out the coffee.

“Oh. I see.” Ilsa appears in my line of vision, mouth pressed in that sexy little pout she does when she thinks she’s being shrewd. I don’t think she even knows she does it. “Did he happen to mention what this reward might be, then?”

“He didn’t. But I was thinking we could start with dinner and see where that leads.”

I glance over my shoulder at her and her mouth is dropped open. Yep, I surprised her. Yep, I'm totally screwed. But at least now, we both know the rules.

  
Shine a Light on Me successfully completed. You have achieved level 22, and earned 13 points of favor with Guildmistress Ilsa Pucci.   



End file.
